Bells of the North Homestead

I've often told newer gardeners that the best thing to do is watch your yard, really watch it for a full season to get a good idea of where the sun is at any given time of the day, where the water collects and lays stagnant most often, which areas are drier, and so on.   So, following my own advice, last year that is precisely what I did.  Now I found recently that when presented with a large amount of area to deal with you need to break it into manageable pieces, quadrants or areas.  So I've broken this down to the garden area, the side area, our pond area, our rabbit area and our bee area.  Our morning sun comes over our house and hits the lilac tree, the raspberries and the raised beds on the left so this year I'll be putting more of the plants that don't do as well with afternoon sun over on the left.  Meanwhile, the plants that love the heat (summer squash, tomatoes, hot peppers) will all be pushed over to the right side where the sun shines from 3p ...

You know one of the things I love MOST when going away, even for the smallest vacation, is coming back and finding SURPRISES. That is something really rather endearing about our very modest garden.  We can leave for even a very small time, come back and VOILA. We have new things popping up. This past weekend we escaped to one of our favorite State run campgrounds for a bit of R&R, came back and found this! Ostrich Ferns Barely peeking through the soil. These are Ostrich Ferns which I planted in this area that has barely EVER produced ANYTHING. There are many areas of our yard that have massive handicaps.  This one has massive shade and very poor soil.  We have slowly added things (including manure and compost) here to see what WILL grow in this area. Most plants have died, failed to thrive or just simply didn't grow at all. Well lo and behold we have found Ostrich Ferns will grow here.  Now the really great bit about Ostrich Ferns. ...